2. He’s also obnoxious, nasty, and a bully. A big part of a president’s job involves character and being a role model, and he is absolutely awful. This is hurting him and his party politically. It hurts the country.

Been trying to get to the range more. It’s amazing how a stone-cold proficiency with firearms helps keep the nightmares at bay. During one of my sojourns to said range, I saw a flier for a “Women Only” concealed carry/pistol introduction class.

Made me think. All the years Mrs. Mongo has seen me carrying, has watched as I enter the house after the workday, grab the nearest kid, and task him/her with “unload, clear, and safe this weapon,” I cannot recall her actually going to the range. Sure, she did some rooty-poot pistol work when she went into the Army,

For years, my conservative friends and I have mocked Clinton Democrats for their defenses of Bill and Hillary. We reminded them how they pretended they didn’t know what really happened, how they pretended Clinton was innocent. How these “truth to power” feminists empowered a guy who treated women — including his wife — like crap. “What shameless hypocrites!” we cried. “What partisan fools! What stupid-on-purpose stooges!”

The election of Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania represents the smallest sliver of daylight appearing between the Democratic Party and the footsoldiers for Planned Parenthood.

It isn’t that Lamb is a pro-life Democrat. He isn’t. But he was very willing to be perceived as such. In other words, like Obama pretending to believe that marriage should be limited to the straight to get elected, Lamb is a hypocrite.

There’s been a trend that’s been going on in the US economy for a few decades, something under the radar to which no one has really given much notice: outsourcing. Outsourced solutions providers have become specialized, moving well beyond traditional payroll services. Other entire administrative functions — such as accounts payable and disbursements processing, HR, IT, and accounting — have all entered the outsourcing market. We’ve entered a time where the Corporate Office may well consist only of the executive suite where all the other functions and employees of a large public company are absent, or if they are present, are employed by another firm.

Outsourcing comes in many flavors. The first is the use of staffing companies to peel off entire classifications of employees. For example, many smaller companies, those at or near the 50 employee healthcare provision threshold, often outsource entire classes of employees, prepared as these staffing companies are to efficiently provide benefits. On a much larger scale, companies with large numbers of semi-skilled staff, especially those companies traditionally offering expensive compensation and benefits offerings, have been replacing positions lost to normal attrition with staff hired through staffing companies, slowly evolving away from direct employment.

I’ve been thinking about this for the last few weeks. We seem to be facing a crisis of manliness in this country. We have lots of men with no chests. We have absent fathers. We vilify fathers and men in particular in our media. What makes a man? I have been blessed to have strong men in my life that have provided good examples of what it is to be a man.

A man keeps his word. When a man says that he will do something, he does it. My maternal grandpa was great at this. You knew that when he said that he’d do something that it would get done. This was in large part due to his work. He worked in a variety of fields throughout his life. He was a mechanic, owning his own shop. He ran a timber business for a number of years. He was a trucker for a few years. He did various other manual labor jobs in his life. In each one of those fields, his word was paramount. He cared about the quality of work he produced. He cared about his clients. If his clients couldn’t trust him when he said that these trees would be cleared in a set number of days then he’d lose business. If he didn’t care about keeping his word, he would have starved. If he didn’t care about keeping his word, he wouldn’t have been able to support his family.

“I will not, if I can help it, shin up either the feathery or the prickly tree. Two widely different convictions press more and more on my mind. One is that the Eternal Vet is even more inexorable and the possible operations even more painful than our severest imaginings can forbode. But the other, that ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’” — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (embedded quote from Julian of Norwich)

A couple of weeks ago, I watched, for the umpteenth time, one of my favorite movies. It’s Shadowlands, the somewhat fictionalized account of C.S. Lewis’s romance with, and marriage to, Joy Davidman Gresham, the divorced, former Communist, Jewish then atheist then Christian, American poet he married “in a matter of friendship and expediency,” (so that she could stay in the UK, sort of a British version of a “green card” marriage in the US) in April 1956, and then again, in the eyes of God, and for real, in March 1957.

News that special counselor Robert Mueller has turned his attention to Erik Prince’s January 11, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with a Russian banker, a Lebanese-American political fixer, and officials from the United Arab Emirates, helps clarify the nature of Mueller’s work. It’s not an investigation that the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading—rather, it’s a cover-up.

May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields and, Until we meet again,May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

New episode! Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which earned Robert de Niro another Oscar nomination right after winning for Godfather: Part II. Another ’70s political crisis story, another timely examination of individualism. Travis Bickle is a man who learns how corrupt society can become and we learn how he goes insane. So join my friend John Presnall and me for a ride through the nightmare that was ’70s New York City and let’s look at respectability, madness, and evil in America!

The Trump White House could sure use a passionate and persuasive advocate for the value of free markets and open economies. And it is my hope that Larry Kudlow will ably fill that role as the new director of the National Economic Council.

But I can see how people might disagree with the appointment. Perhaps you think the role should be filled by a Ph.D. economist, which Kudlow isn’t. Fine. Nor has Kudlow recently been in a position with significant management responsibilities. Also a perfectly reasonable opinion. And I myself have become highly critical of Kudlow’s “supply-side” economics and the almost magical power it attributes to tax cuts.

The pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University’s Miami-Dade campus today, killing several people, was funded with $11.4 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. The TIGER program has come under repeated fire for awarding money based on politics rather than merit.

I’ve debated about posting this but in the end want to show what a teaching salary really looks like in Az. This is my new pay after taking a few professional development classes…I actually laughed when I saw the old salary vs. the new one. I mean really, I need a college degree to make this? I paid 80,000 for a college degree, I then paid several hundred more to transfer my certification to Az. I buy every roll of tape I use, every paper clip I use, every sharpie I grade with, every snack I feed kids who don’t have them, every decorated bulletin board, the list could go on. I love teaching! BUT…the reality is without my husband’s income I could NEVER be an educator in this state! I’m sad for my single mom teacher friends working 3 jobs to make ends meet! Something must be done…otherwise our poor children will be taught by unqualified, burned out, and just plain bad teachers! P.S.No one goes into teaching for the money, by all means…but we do need to eat and have a home! #RedforEd#Azwakeupandmakesomechanges

I met Ginny in January, amidst a raucous gaggle of conservatives partying in LA one night last fall. A successful retired screenwriter, Ginny is a peppy, enthusiastic supporter of the idea that California, and the country, can be saved if conservatives will share resources and work together. Using her own savings, she founded Connect The Dots, a 501(c)4 devoted to getting conservatives to learn how to cooperate and communicate the ideas of conservatism more efficiently. A longtime California resident, she’s witnessed the rapid demise of freedom in California and is actually putting her money where her mouth is to try to fix it.

This Saturday, March 17, at the Burbank Airport Marriott, she’s sponsoring an ambitious event called Saving California, and it’s meant to shine a spotlight on the story of what conservatism looks like for the future, and how we can build a successful coalition, even on the Left Coast. David Horowitz, Bill Whittle, Evan Sayet, Internet sensation Alfonzo Rachel, and Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk will headline, and our own intrepid Whiskey Politics’ podcaster @Dave Sussman will be there to get the story and interview speakers and moderate panels. In addition, the controversial but wonderful L.A. street artist, SABO will have something special planned.

Republicans in Congress appeared open to President Donald Trump’s proposal to use the death penalty to crack down on drug dealers on Thursday night before the expected release of the president’s long-awaited opioid plan.